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Jay Leno interview extras | |

Jay Leno interview extras

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Here are some extras from my recent interview with Jay Leno, who stopped in the Hub on Tuesday for some funny business:

On whether 17 years as "Tonight Show" host was getting monotonous:

"No, I love doing it, it’s a great job," Leno said. "It’s the best job in TV, I love doing it. And now we’ll have some elements of that combined with some new elements. I don’t think this would have worked 10 years ago. There really hasn’t been a successful show launched on any network in the last 10 years. The last I think was CSI: Miami and that was 2002. For some reason people don’t seem to be watching these dramatic murder shows at 10 o’clock."

On the flavor of his new gig, "The Jay Leno Show":

“We’re trying to get into the immediacy of television," he said. "Television that’s really successful now is TV that happens right now, you know, 'American Idol,' some of these dance shows, other stuff. Shows that are taped six, eight weeks in advance don’t fare so well because people don’t feel there’s any spontaneity to it and that’s where I think we can do OK. We’ll be on 46 weeks a year, our competition shows are only 22 weeks a year, I mean I don’t expect to beat them against originals, but maybe we can catch them on the reruns. That’s sort of the plan.”

On whether he's excited to launch the new show:

“I think it’ll be a challenge,” he said. “I’m not like a really excitable guy. You know, you do this long enough, it’s a bit like relationships. You go into them cautiously optimistic - I hope this works, she doesn’t seem crazy, I hope it’s OK. I’m not one of those people that falls head over heels in love and then gets terribly depressed. I tend to go into it – you know, you put together things you think will work and my attitude has always been, can this make money for other people and be successful? Then it’ll sort of be successful for me. And that’s kind of the way I go into it, like it’s a business and that’s what I’m doing here. We’ve taken elements that I think work from the 'Tonight Show,' combined them with a lot of new elements and we'll see what happens.”